According to Almazroui, it is legal to keep exotic pets such as cheetahs, cougars, jaguars, leopards, black panthers, lions and yellow and white tiger cubs in Abu Dhabi with a license, but many people buy animals without applying for the proper permission.

She continues:

“The question is not just how many of these pets are legal, it is also why having such animals can be permitted, despite all the potentially negative consequences for both the animals and their owners.”

Those consequences include danger to owners and neighbors, and the environmental impact on migrating often endangered animals out of their natural habitats.

Qatari law

Keeping wild animals as pets is illegal under Qatari law, but complaints have been on the rise about residents owning lions, tigers and other dangerous animals and treating them as pets in their homes.

Despite the illegality of their actions, many owners choose to flout their pets, driving them around Qatar and showing them off to passers by, a spectacle witnessed by the expats who took this video a few years ago:

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Victoria Scott is Editor-at-Large at Doha News. Before moving to Qatar in 2009, she was a broadcast journalist for BBC News for eight years. She's also worked for Al Jazeera, Reuters and The Telegraph. She has a postgraduate degree in Broadcast Journalism from City University, London, and an undergraduate degree in English Language and Literature from King's College, London.